THE BALL BEARING
My best friend, Jim,
went back to the America for good
(his father changed his job)
He left me a bag of ball bearings
which, in the local playground’s currency,
you could exchange
for twenty ordinary marbles each
I rolled one out onto my hand
the globular reflection made me think
its surface was composed
of all the infinitely teeny points
of countless radii
diverging from its core
And to ensure
that one of those straight lines,
extending over sea and land
or even through the world's curved crust,
connected me with Jim,
I cupped the little globe
between both palms
MAGPIE
Before the manor house went up for sale,
The gardener pruned the cedar tree,
In whose cropped canopy
He noticed an abandoned nest.
When he removed the lid,
The trademark of that deft
Miscreant’s basketry,
A long since dormant memory
Awoke:
A tearful maidservant dismissed for theft,
Whose uniform, he now reflects,
Foreshadowed her unhappy tale,
Attiring her in the true culprit’s black
And white.
MASQUE
My face’s lower half,
Obscured in a tightly secured neck-scarf,
(Which, not so long ago,
Would probably have terrified the staff),
I told the Lloyds consultant at the desk,
Whose mask had slipped,
That one of her colleagues had asked me
To come back with I.D.
She then replaced her mask,
Which hid her grin, and quipped,
‘Do you recognise her now?’
And to and fro,
Between my photo and my eyes & brow,
Her brown eyes skipped.
Paul Demuth - I like the sound of my name ‘Paul’ because it chimes nicely with whoever I am.
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